Applications for undergraduate degree courses in nursing have plummeted by 32% since bursaries for student nurses were scrapped in England in 2016, despite warnings that the move would backfire. Applications from mature students to study mental health and disability nursing fell even more sharply – by 40% – between 2016 and this year. Interest has dwindled so dramatically that many universities are considering axing their specialist courses.

- shortage on the demand side. but demand can't be more leveraged and borrowed. ALL economic indicators point against a thriving of the UK bottom up (from household finances, are stretched thinly) //&! Gross wages lower than 10 years ago! Lost decade of earnings. In real terms people are NOT better off.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0anqgXLvwko

The conversion of means-tested grants into loans has meant that the poorest students end up graduating with the biggest debts, says Lord Forsyth.

And he warns that the current repayment system was more expensive for people in middle income jobs such as nursing, rather than high-paid lawyers or financiers, who would pay off their debts more quickly.

"The people who get screwed by this are those in the middling jobs," says Lord Forsyth.

"This was all done on the basis that it would create a market in higher education - and that has failed, there isn't a market."

Lord Forsyth says that there is no meaningful consumer choice or competition - and he dismissed the system for rating teaching quality in universities, the teaching excellence framework, as a "bit of a joke".

"Because no-one ever turns up to look at the teaching," says Lord Forsyth.

education bubble // what good is higher education? investment? consumption? an insurance not to be left behind? then why is insurance so expensive *if it were insurance, then meritocracy claim is invalid bc you take out future earning to get a step higher on the ladder? competitive tournament to pay an entry fee (excluding people)?

#shambles // between a fifth and a third of graduates take non-graduate jobs, and that any extra returns for having a degree "vary wildly". // got to uni or get fucked by life - aka Precariat poverty trap tl;dr // nothing in between not step ladder! nothing technical. also no assistance, was cut by Tories //

Millennials are spending three times more of their income on housing than their grandparents yet are often living in worse accommodation, says a study launched by former Conservative minister David Willetts that warns of a “housing catastrophe”. [....] They are four times as likely to rent privately than two generations ago, a sector which has the worst record for housing quality, the report claims.

With 40,000 nursing vacancies unfilled, the news that training applications are down by 23% is disastrous for the NHS [...] It reckons that in all over the past 10 years, 400,000 people who would have studied part-time in higher education have been deterred from doing so. [... can really re-pay the fees working for nurse salary + the jobs commitment ... + working 50% of their time training! ] [...] Janet Davies, head of the Royal College of Nursing, warns that nurses’ attitudes will alter once they are paying heftily for their training: “They will demand better clinical placements and their relationship with the NHS will change: carrying a heavy debt to get qualified, they will feel less obligation to work in the NHS.” The government promised that imposing fees on trainee nurses would see an increase of 10,000 new training places; none have been provided.

Burnside said student debt was an additional drain on people’s resources for an “astonishingly long time”, sapping the purchasing power of the graduate population.

He said it was unclear what the longer-term implications of rising student debts in the UK would be, following the introduction of the £9,000-a-year tuition fees. “We don’t yet know how graduates will respond, how it will affect their attitudes to pensions, savings, buying a house.”

There are two things at work here. The natural resource distortion to the real economy. And the Super Rich and Criminals and Asia/China who are desperate to divest and park their riches in democracies and rule of law and hard "assets"

Senior Leave backers express concern over approach to immigration and say students should be free to come to UK [...] “People who are doing great jobs in this country are feeling insecure and I think it would be really good for those people to have the comfort that we are not going to boot them out in 18 months’ time,” he told the Observer. “I just think we should make the gesture, full stop. I don’t think there should be a quid pro quo, I just think we should make the gesture. They would look pretty churlish if they didn’t [reciprocate by guaranteeing the status of UK nationals in the EU].”

His intervention comes after a week in which Brussels officials expressed concern over reaching a deal on the status of EU nationals in the UK. Brussels is insisting that they are allowed to keep all their rights, including access to healthcare and the right to bring a spouse to the UK.

Now, in a significant development the Home Office says this will not be acted upon.

“EU citizens will not be removed from the UK or refused entry solely because they do not have comprehensive sickness insurance,” said a spokesman.
The categorical assurance is a departure from previous Home Office statements. It will assuage growing fears among students and other categories of EU nationals including stay-at-home parents that they were at risk of removal for not complying with a hitherto little-known requirement to have “comprehensive sickness insurance” (CSI) to qualify for residency in the UK. [...] There is no known case of the Home Office enforcing the CSI rule even though there are more than 120,000 EU students in the UK.

[ corporatists/banks will neg lower price than actual/current value. Bc (1) inflation (2) no-repayments/delayed repayment/default (3) lower repayment rates in future than expected bc of econ. et al. Tories selling gov assets at firesale prices because of its fetish w the deficit caused by the bank bailout. ] But Hillman raised concerns about whether the sale would result in taxpayers getting value for money, saying: “We saw in Gordon Brown’s sale of the government’s gold and also in Vince Cable’s sale of Royal Mail how hard that is to achieve and how controversial it can be if the price paid comes to seem too low.

“Ministers will say the underlying legislation only allows sales that are good value for money, but it takes time to know if that has happened in practice.”

(Chris Hayes - Twillight of the elites 2011) collapse of the elite of authority = disorder // loss of fiath and institutions ... people tune out on TV telling them Brexit and Trump is bad. // Hillary Clinton had all that she could ask for, still Bernie gave her the bern ... gives you the size of resentment and want for change.

Indeed, the typical millennial in the U.K., which the think tank defines as aged 15 to 35, earned about 8,000 pounds (the equivalent of around $10,600) less during their 20s than did those in Generation X.

In this post-referendum vacuum, Carney alone can't save the UK economy - Getting productivity going again will require more investment in innovation and our universities. It means more help for businesses that want to update their production lines, overhaul their IT systems or retrain their staff. Productivity will only improve if the UK addresses its skills shortages with sensible immigration policies and with better training. In an age of economic insecurity, training is key if the march of the robots is not to further exacerbate inequality. Similarly, the UK must get serious about moving to an apprenticeship system that has parity of esteem. - http://bit.ly/29cCmtq

But the revolution that had delivered Brexit, driven in large part by white working-class votes, was sweeping all before it in the most unpredictable way – careers and ambitions, along with what had seemed the safest of assumptions. The aftershocks of the referendum were wreaking havoc with the old system. //&! How bad can Brexit be if it has made bankers think about inequality? [...] Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAML) immediately called Brexit the “biggest electoral riposte yet to [the] age of inequality”. Investment group Pimco, which manages $1.5 trillion of bonds, warned clients about the “battle against inequality”. Meanwhile French giant Axa (with €666bn under its belt) concluded: “UK voters have taken their frustrations about income inequality out on the EU.” - http://bit.ly/29gYh3T //&! decades long neglect from Westminster, Whitehall, No Representation - bit.ly/29lZVDn & bit.ly/29ey7jL

New analysis of how money will shift from young to old over the next four years has been produced by the foundation as it announces a new intergenerational commission aimed at creating a fairer deal for voters aged under 25. The analysis, which breaks down the impact of tax and welfare changes planned for this parliament by age, shows that people in their 30s will experience the biggest losses of any age group, losing an average of £220 a year by 2020.

In contrast, people in their 60s are set to be the largest beneficiaries, gaining an average of £170 a year. The research also shows that 45 is the age at which people, on average, move from losing to gaining from forthcoming tax and benefit polices in this parliament.

Canada: Generation Jobless - https://youtu.be/4UUuMWqA8eE - "The Plight of Younger Workers" (Report).& underemployed graduates w fancy sounding degrees. [...] EDUCATION INFLATION! [...] an education does no more guarantee a comfortable middle class jobs, and parents are disappointed. [...] globalisation of workforce plus automation, robotics, AI, augmented intelligence. the new GM's and Toyota's and DuPonts need less and less workers to catch ever greater pies of the current and future economy. [...] rise of the project focused self-employed and the Gig Economy. //&! (USA) Invisible Reality; The Working Poor - youtu.be/806PSngTKgg //&! FULL STORY: Generation Poor - youtu.be/lB4w8MQPdEE //&! FULL STORY: The Labour Trap - youtu.be/cHBo3LgXUPA - precarious work is now more and more the norm. as well as exploitation of those conditions.

On the surface, the March jobs reported was better than expected... except for manufacturing workers. As shown in the chart below, in the past month, a disturbing 29,000 manufacturing jobs were lost. This was the single biggest monthly drop in the series going back to December 2009. But not all is lost: as has been the case for virtually every month during the "recovery", virtually every laid off manufacturing worker could find a job as a waiter: in March, the workers in the "Food services and drinking places" category, aka waiters, bartenders and minimum wage line cooks, rose again to a new record high of 11,307,000 workers, an increase of 25K in the month, offsetting virtually all lost manufacturing jobs. This is how the two job series have looked since the start of 2015: 24k manufacturing jobs have been lost in the past 14 months compared to an increas of 365K food service workers.

// 70% of UK economy growth (GDP), 2015, was consumption. // and trade deficit/current account deficit for 2015, biggest ever on record ---- The UK's current account deficit widened to a record high in the final quarter of last year.
The deficit in the three months to December was £32.7bn, the equivalent of 7% of GDP, said the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
For all of 2015, it came to £96.2bn or 5.2% of GDP. Both figures were the highest since records began in 1948.
A current account deficit means the value of imports of goods, services and investment income exceeds exports.[...] "An obvious potential trigger for the markets losing confidence in the UK economy could be a vote to leave the EU in the 23 June referendum." [ harder to finance w weak Sterling and higher interest rates, rating agencies hinted at the case of a downgrade of UK's credit worthieness ] - bbc.in/1ZMEvAg

[2015] 80% OF ECONOMY CONSUMER SPENDING! - The economy has enjoyed what Andrew Goodwin of Oxford Economics describes as a "sugar rush" -the equivalent of a big tax cut - or 'fiscal stimulus' - through lower petrol prices. The economy grew by 2.2% last year; 80% of that growth was down to consumer spending. "That [growth] strikes us as some distance below par given the tailwinds we have had," Mr Goodwin says. And after the sugar rush comes the sugar crash: growth is likely to be revised down in the years to come because of global economic weakness.

BIS 100% of private debt and finance sector larger than 3.9% of economy bad ... and siphoning off talent from more productive fields of work. And finance favours lending to property and land (low productivity). [...] financial products (derivatives) do not help economy. is just a financial product, fee collection. rentier! rent-seeking behaviour! fees fees fees. (JP Morgan, 89% of profits, see interview) [...] QE reflated asset prices/share prices! // In the second half, Max interviews David Graeber about his new book, The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy.

In order to generate artificial economic growth, the ECB wants banks to make as many loans as possible, no matter how stupid or idiotic. They believe that economic growth is simply a function of loans. The more money that’s loaned out, the more the economy will grow. This is the sort of theory that works really well in an economic textbook. But it doesn’t work so well in a history textbook. Cheap money encourages risky behavior. It gives banks an incentive to give ‘no money down’ loans to homeless people with no employment history. It creates bubbles (like the housing bubble from 10 years ago), and ultimately, financial panics (like the banking crisis from 8 years ago). Banks are supposed to be conservative, responsible managers of other people’s money. When central bank policies penalize that practice, bad things tend to happen.

Growth is tepid, productivity is poor, and inflation is too low: all is not going according to policymakers’ masterplans [...] As far as the OECD is concerned, monetary policy is being forced to take too much of the strain. Its chief economist Catherine Mann made the point that lasting recovery required three things: stimulative monetary policy; activist fiscal policy; and structural reform. The OECD wants the second of these ingredients to be added to the recipe in the form of increased spending on public infrastructure, something it says would more than pay for itself at a time when governments can borrow so cheaply.

From crops to energy and metals, average material consumption fell from 15 tonnes in 2001 to just over 10 tonnes in 2013 [...] UK households have also abandoned buying many resource-intensive goods common in the recent past – such as metal-heavy video recorders and hi-fi systems, vinyl records, CDs and books – as they shift to digital consumption. [...] The figures will spark fresh speculation that Britain and other developed economies have hit ‘peak stuff’, although some critics pour scorn on the quality of the ONS’s environmental accounts. In January, Ikea said the appetite of western consumers for home furnishings had reached its peak and consumption of many familiar goods was at its limit. Household spending on physical goods, including furnishings, clothing, cars and gadgets, decreased between 2002/03 and 2014, [...] Households now spend more on services than physical goods, he said. [...] [ saturation in some markets but we are not living in peak stuff ]

[ putting investment decisions and plans on hold! ] Christine Lagarde warns that uncertainty over outcome ‘will be bad in and of itself’ in months leading up to vote [...] But the IMF’s annual health check said “the relatively positive outlook is subject to risks and uncertainties”, including a global slowdown, sluggish productivity growth, a large trade deficit, still-high levels of household debt, and the forthcoming referendum on EU membership. It said any sign of weakness in growth should be met with higher spending by the Treasury. The UK authorities should explore “both revenue and expenditure measures, while protecting spending in priority areas, including healthcare, education, and infrastructure”. The report emphasised that “flexibility in the fiscal framework should be used to modify the pace of adjustment in the event of weaker demand growth”. [ moderates and politicians, wisely worded! no instructions. no direct criticism. ]

Despite at least one adult working full time, millions of households cannot make ends meet, Joseph Rowntree Foundation reports [...] Millions of households struggle to make ends meet even though they include at least one adult in full-time work, according to a report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF). Living standards have declined since 2008 despite the economy’s return to growth, the anti-poverty charity said, warning that families with children are at particular risk of a life in poverty. [...] The MIS is determined by asking members of the public to define what is needed to “live to an adequate level”. The threshold is £16,850 for a single person, £25,600 for a lone parent with one child and £36,060 for a single breadwinner with two children. [...] Approximately 11.6 million people in the UK live below the MIS, [...] An improving economy alone is not guaranteed to reverse this rise.” [...] [ no economic security in this recovery! ]

[ gov is not co-owner of private property! Make away with Nurse Bursaries and other gov support for education. But support the property price! by keeping supply always lower than demand. and use policy to increase demand w subsidies! where to put their savings! & subsidy for builders ] Rising house prices across much of England mean a government scheme to help buyers of newbuild property may have made more than £200m for the Treasury in its first two-and-a-half years. The help-to-buy equity loan scheme gives buyers an interest-free loan for five years in return for a percentage stake in their property. When the home is sold, the buyer returns the same percentage of the sale price, meaning that any fall or rise in house prices affects the return. Analysis by property firm Hometrack and shared with the Guardian suggests that a surge in house prices in some areas means the total value of homes bought through the scheme since its launch in April 2013 has increased by more than £1bn.

Whether sub-zero interest rates actually work is open to debate, however. So says Richard Koo, the chief economist of the Nomura Research Institute. “In my view,” he writes, “the adoption of negative interest rates is an act of desperation born out of despair over the inability of quantitative easing and inflation targeting to produce the desired results.” The failure of the BOJ and the ECB to meet their inflation and growth goals is shared by the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England. None of these central banks understand that their textbook solutions don’t fit the real economy, Koo asserts. [...] And on a more practical level, why corporations sit on record hoards of cash (taxes aside). [<< macro prudential policy ] //&! “When no one is borrowing money, monetary policy is largely useless.” [...] Keynes was right and (Milton) Freidman was wrong. - bit.ly/1Kl07Ri & There is no Confidence Fairy //&! fam.ag/1ogOOiM & bit.ly/1LpJL4W & bit.ly/1VgSjAB & bit.ly/214Icm3 & bit.ly/1Kl228n

Quantitative easing (QE) stabilized the economy but also exacerbated wealth disparity between rich and poor, mainly by boosting financial asset prices and house prices. //&! [ LOW PAY MINIMUM WAGE JOB CREATION ] During the U.K.’s recent “jobs-rich, pay-poor” economic recovery, strong employment gains were accompanied by a further rise of already high wage dispersion and an ever-growing share of part-time employment in lower income groups. //&! In the context of the tight housing market, low interest rates and QE are among the drivers behind the widening wealth and income gap between younger and older generations and between those on the housing ladder and those not on it. //&! Inequality is damaging! // bit.ly/1QtauyZ - Bank of England's recovery policies have increased inequality, finds S&P [...] spending too much on rent, not able to save for deposit! //&! bit.ly/1PPyEYl &! ti.me/1sbBtrz

[ continued financialisation of economy / faustian pact ] QE and low interest rates have disproportionately created wealth in the financial sector and inflated asset bubbles. It has done little for the real economy. The rules of the market need to be rewritten [...] dominant policies during the post-crisis period – fiscal retrenchment and quantitative easing (QE) by major central banks – have offered little support to stimulate household consumption, investment, and growth. On the contrary, they have tended to make matters worse. In the US, quantitative easing did not boost consumption and investment partly because most of the additional liquidity returned to central banks’ coffers in the form of excess reserves. [...] private investment did not grow [...] [ QE supported only financial sector and zombie banks and corporations, little to nothing went into the real economy for investment in western world ] [ which leads us to say we are still in a banking crisis per se ]

Nevertheless, the UK’s goods trade gap with the rest of the world widened by £1.9bn to a record high of £125bn in 2015. Howard Archer, chief UK economist at IHS Global Insight, said: “UK exports have clearly struggled in recent months, as they have been hampered by sterling’s overall strength in 2015, particularly against the euro, and moderate global demand. [...] Recent declines in the value of sterling are expected to support exports sales, though the deteriorating global situation could mitigate against an improved exchange rate. [...] “Nonetheless, any progress in reducing the trade deficit is likely to be extremely slow in the near term, leaving the recovery reliant on domestic demand.” [...] [ you can lower your corp tax, but if your country is shitty in business environment ie infrastructure and employee qualifications and immigration ... nobody wants to do business ]

Many have argued that we overstate the importance of housing and household debt in explaining the Great Recession and weak recovery. They point to the banking crisis, policy uncertainty, or excessive regulation as equally or even more important. The data released today by the BEA show pretty clearly that the arguments we make in House of Debt remain relevant for thinking about economic weakness today. In our view, the explanation we provide is the most consistent with the striking difference in consumption across states. // From Comments: Without real median income rising you can’t grow in an economy based on debt expansion

Online fashion retailer Nasty Gal has laid off 10 percent of its staff, as the purveyor of edgy women’s clothing cuts costs amid an uncertain financing and retail environment. CEO Sheree Waterson told the company in an email that the cuts were necessary as the “market in which we operate is changing, both in retail broadly and apparel specifically.” Nineteen employees across several departments were let go. Nasty Gal also laid off some staff in 2014. The layoffs underscore the difficulty mature e-commerce startups can encounter as they transition from being a hot new brand to the long slog of building a more traditional retail business. In short, building a retail brand is really hard and technology can only afford you so many shortcuts along the way. Online beauty brand BirchBox announced layoffs of 15 percent of its staff last week, as startups in e-commerce tighten belts as investors become more wary of unprofitable growth.

The UK economy currently gets nowhere near its target of 2%. Inflation would decrease the value of current debts, making them less of a burden. In a world without much inflation, it is hard to get wages up. The worse case scenario is that debt costs increase, as prices and wages stagnate. [ ignoring debt and income growth - stagnation at their peril - youtu.be/KIaXVntqlUE - gov is no household budget, Steve Keen + Richard Koo ] [...] And in this age of austerity, these factors will work against governments seeking to reduce the welfare bill. Recent data shows that, in UK cities, growing numbers of low paid jobs have led to rising claims for welfare such as housing benefits, defeating the government’s aims to reduce spending.

Weak economic data is casting doubt on the future performance of the UK economy, with inflation persistently well below the Bank of England's 2% target and earnings growth slowing down from a six-year high. Earlier this month, figures for November showed that UK industrial output had suffered its sharpest decline since 2013. Looking further ahead, investors are worried about the outcome of a referendum on the UK's continued membership of the EU. As Andy Scott of foreign exchange services firm HiFX put it: "Concerns over the UK economy and the risk of a Brexit look likely to continue to haunt sterling." Traders are also generally more risk-averse in the light of the global turmoil caused by Chinese market problems and falling oil prices, which makes them reluctant to buck sterling's downward trend.

[ chicago school of economics ] 17:25 - private debt // demand will never be again so starong as before GFC. growth of debt/credit is normal. but without growth and high debt is cancer. + current account deficit/trade deficit = means things for UK can not go in indefinitely. austerity will run its course, will not make things better. next is property bubble! and NPL as normalisation to 2% nears // China margin trading & leverage via credit bubble. property bubble. // 24:20 - there is still room to grow household/private debt. Tories treat gov budget like a household rather than a bank! UK will stumble along at lower rate than America. Will not get better! Just rearranging deck chairs of a painfully slowly sinking ship.

most profitable credit card debt customers are those making just the minimum payment. ... a credit card being a statement of status! retaining customers by upgrading them regularly w higher limits, new colors, new perks (they will never use). // unsecured lending - DEFINITION of 'Unsecured Loan' A loan that is issued and supported only by the borrower's creditworthiness, rather than by a type of collateral. An unsecured loan is one that is obtained without the use of property as collateral for the loan. // revolving debt // the higher your credit limit, the more you are likely to spend. // half of his income to just serve credit card fees and interest charges (no payments towards paying down) debt ... // banks lend irresponsibly bc they know they can get away with it, or somebody else will do it! because there is not regulation. no bank oversight. //&! The Truth about Payday Loans :Young, British and Broke - youtu.be/-yWxTvffbuE //&! Gambling/Betting Shops on Highstreet.

Well, well: who would have believed it. First the Bank for International Settlements comes out with a paper that links credit booms to the boom-bust business cycle, then Britain's Adam Smith Institute publishes a paper by Anthony Evans that recommends the Bank of England should ditch its powers over monetary policy and move towards free banking. [...] The BIS paper will be the more influential of the two in policy circles, and this is not the first time the BIS has questioned the macroeconomic assumptions behind the actions of the major central banks. [...] Targeting nominal GDP is not a perfect answer.

the world’s grand experiment with debt has come to an end. And it’s now unraveling. [...] The next thing is to give money to Main Street. [...] Either way, money will be printed out of thin air and given to you. That’s what’s coming next. Possibly after a failed attempt at demanding negative interest rates from the banks. But coming it is. [...] Once people lose faith in their currency all bets are off. The smart people will be those who take their fresh central bank money and spend it before the next guy.

fight to save colleges from threat of funding cuts //&! The Tories’ assault on further education will cost Britain dearly. Colleges have been battered by cuts already – another round could destroy them. It is time we made David Cameron talk about it - http://bit.ly/1QeZ46n

Technology Destroying Jobs + While the big driver of the decline in economic growth since the 1980’s has been a structural change from a manufacturing based economy (high multiplier effect) to a service based one (low multiplier effect), it has been exacerbated by the increase in household debt to offset the reduction in wage growth to maintain the standard of living. This is shown clearly in the chart below. [...] In fact, each job created in energy-related areas has had a “ripple effect” of creating 2.8 jobs elsewhere in the economy from piping to coatings, trucking and transportation, restaurants and retail. Simply put, lower oil and gasoline prices may have a bigger detraction on the economy than the “savings” provided to consumers.

[ how do you save up when you can afford housing (nor even a mortgage, have credit cards (drinks and presents), and student loan. all the while tories help to prop-up the property bubble, the only wealth uk households actually have! ] Most people now in their teens, 20s and 30s will be worse off as a result of changes to the state pension system, while millions of older people will gain, according to the government’s own figures. The data will fuel concern that millions of younger people are suffering from the effects of what has been dubbed “intergenerational unfairness”, partly caused by the government targeting money and resources at the older generation. DWP issued the data to back up its assertion that the introduction of the new flat-rate state pension in April “will make millions of people better off” – but the figures also provide stark confirmation that younger people will be losers from the changes.

[ shifting public debt onto private debt balance sheet. = no vision! debt is still there in economy! paying higher interest rates. -- vs -- bankers gambling debt put on public balance sheet! ] Ministers have been accused of an “outrageous” attempt to sneak through their proposals to end student grants in England without proper scrutiny by MPs. The plan to scrap maintenance grants, which help half a million of the poorest students pay for university life, will go through a legislation committee on Thursday, without a vote and debate on the floor of the House of Commons. [...] Labour is opposing the change and the lack of scrutiny. Gordon Marsden, the shadow universities minister, said it was “not simply technical tinkering but a major change by the government that will deprive around half a million of England’s students from lower income and disadvantaged households, of maintenance grant funding”. // &! NHS nurse bursaries - ind.pn/1IYHYbk &! bit.ly/1IWZJI0 &! bbc.in/1RAhLRv

Student nurses and midwives have marched in protest at the government's decision to scrap their bursaries in England and replace them with loans. [...] The Royal College of Nursing said fear of debt would put people off training. // shifted another budget item off the publics balance sheet onto private balance sheet. //&! Spending Review: Grants for student nurses are being scrapped - bbc.in/1jk5kLW //&! NHS nursing levels: Nine in 10 hospitals missing targets - The vast majority of hospitals in England are struggling to recruit enough nurses, figures show. Some 92% of the 225 acute hospital trusts in England did not manage to run wards with their planned number of nurses during the day in August. The figures, published by the NHS, show that hospitals in England are falling short of their own targets for levels of safe staffing. - bbc.in/1Pfuzuq

[ repeat phrases - "strong economy", "strong economy, strong NHS" ] The UK faces a "cocktail" of serious threats from a slowing global economy as 2016 begins, Chancellor George Osborne has warned. Speaking in Cardiff, Mr Osborne said this year is likely to be one of the toughest since the financial crisis. He told business leaders that far from "mission accomplished" on the economy, "2016 is the year of mission critical". His message is in stark contrast to the positive tone of his Autumn Statement, when he said the UK was "growing fast". [...] that the Autumn Statement had put in place a four-year plan to restore the UK's public finances, and make the economy more productive, with businesses more competitive so they could create jobs. [...] Mr Osborne told the Today programme the UK's economic recovery was not "a debt-fuelled recovery", citing the support of the governor of the Bank of England in his assessment. [ not public, but private household debt! ]

Student Finance - Necessary reform or the betrayal of a generation? Lord Willets, former Minister for Universities and Science and Sally Hunt, General Secretary of the University and College Union give their view on George Osborne’s plans. // shifting an item off the public balance sheet that he is held accountable, reducing the budget deficit. and the payback rate (threshold) is not progressive, gradual. the 9% added tax rate is fixed, after earning 21k. 29% tax vs 20%. also scheme does not subsidies interest rates as much as you would expected, as the state can loan at lower rates. broken also conditions at 2012, letters said conditions could change.

Families are expected to run up £40bn of debt this year, sparking fears about Britain’s economic recovery. [...] (OBR) forecasts have found that households have moved from a surplus of £67bn in 2010, the year the coalition took power, to a £40bn deficit this year. Unsustainable borrowing is on course to near the levels reached in the run-up to the 2008 financial crash, according to Labour. Seema Malhotra, the shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, said: “George Osborne is relying on millions of British families going further into debt to hit his growth targets. [ as projected by economists, that household had to take up debt, shifting debt burden off the public balance sheet, when austerity plans were revealed together with LibDems, to meet growth targets/estimates, back then. same w decistions to increase student loans, convert grants into loan ie for nursing, remove allowances and grants. same w the green bank. shifting items off the balance sheet. and underinvestment. ]

[ UK more like USA than Europe, let alone Germany ] Underlying economic vulnerabilities have been addressed, and steady growth looks set to continue, it said. But high household debt, a "strikingly large" trade deficit and high government debt are still risks to the economy. It also warned about uncertainty over whether the UK would stay in the EU. [...] But although UK house price growth has eased, the household debt-to-income ratio is still high, and could leave some households vulnerable to shock interest rate rises. The large trade deficit could affect cash flows into the UK, adversely affecting growth, the report says. In addition, high government debt, and a continuing deficit, could tie the government's hands in dealing with any future recession, and productivity growth might fail to materialise. Chancellor George Osborne said the IMF report "could hardly be more positive" about the UK economy, but that it "rightly" identified challenges.

[ moving another item off the books/balance sheet onto others, in this case, the private purse. and when tories came to power together with lib dems - they did cut part of funding for places ] Plans to axe bursaries and replace them with loans have been condemned by unions, but universities say they will lead to more training places for nurses, midwives and allied health professionals [...] Unions fear a loan system will be an obstacle to people from poorer backgrounds and career changers. Midwifery in particular attracts a large number of mature students over 29 – many of whom bring with them vital existing experience of childbirth – but are already saddled with debt from a first degree. //&! bit.ly/1HNLIMj

[ easy thing to move double digit spend off balance sheet onto someone else's - Career Politicians trick ] "Disabled students should be allowed equal opportunities to non-disabled students and to put it bluntly, the cuts to DSA limit our futures. "Having discussed the cuts to DSA with deaf and other disabled students I have seen a trend in a loss of hope. These students, myself included, feel disregarded by the government and our access to higher education has been unjustly restricted." [...] The National Union of Students fears small, specialised institutions will struggle to meet the costs. Disabled students' officer Maddy Kirkman said the changes risked inconsistency in support and complained the government had ignored these concerns. [...] The Green party said the changes amounted to a £70m cut to support for disabled students. [...] She warned that disabled students could "fall into a no man's land" with government and universities each claiming it is the other's responsibility.

Consumer spending is driving economic growth but household debt and the house price-income ratio is at a record high. Be afraid [...] It is worth recalling that when Osborne became chancellor five and a half years ago that he had two big objectives. The first was to repair the hole in the public finances, which is still very much a work in progress. The other was to shift the centre of gravity of the economy back towards making things for export. This remains a pipedream. [...] Despite the welcome pickup in business investment, the main driver of growth has been consumer spending, which has been boosted by low interest rates, the fall in inflation caused by lower oil prices, and a modest acceleration in earnings. [...] “not the ideal shape for the recovery” and it can say that again. The current recovery looks like all the previous recoveries. [...] “Fast-rising household debt is needed to maintain a reasonable rate of growth in consumers’ spending and GDP in a world of austerity ...

Tim Farron instructs peers to back fatal motion, greatly increasing chances of government being defeated //&! bit.ly/1NlQDCE - Live Ticker of that Day: Former shadow business secretary Chuka Umunna says that while state subsidy going to employers to top-up low wages is not desirable, it is the order of the government’s policy that is the problem, ie. cutting tax credits before the wages go up enough. [ << SHOWING HOW LITTLE EVERYDAY MORALITY, ETHICS, HUMILITY, MENSCH, COMPASSION AND SENSIBILITY TORIES HAVE. ] //&! MP Heidi Allen warns tax credit cuts 'betray' Tory values [...] cutting peoples cloth when there is no cloth. - bbc.in/1LlzFDQ [...] want "transitional" arrangements [...] [MP Heidi Allen] said her party must not treat it as "a spreadsheet exercise" since many of those affected would not be able to cope and faced a stark choice between heating their homes and putting food on their tables. //&! bit.ly/1jRP9WJ &! bit.ly/1M6zk5j - Who is MP Heidi Allen?

[ u-25s not included in minimum wage, housing benefits ] We’d love to grow up, we really would. But policies on everything from student loans to housing seem designed to ensure we can never achieve adulthood [...] We have been disproportionately affected by recession and austerity. According to research published by the Resolution Foundation earlier this year, 22 to 29 year-olds saw a 12.5% fall in wages between 2009 and 2014. Working-age households suffered a 4% cut to their incomes, while pensioner households saw theirs jump by almost 10% between 2007 and 2014.